The most important chapters in Professor Butcher’s work--indeed they occupy nearly one half of it--are those dealing with Aristotle’s theory of fine art and poetry. On no subject in criticism have there been so many misconceptions current and influential even among scholars, originating for the most part from mistranslations and misunderstandings of the treatise in which they find their chief embodiment--the _Poetics_. This has unfortunately come down to us in a very imperfect and corrupt state, and, what is more unfortunate still, it became a classic in criticism long before it was properly understood. Thus, in the clause in the famous definition of tragedy, where Aristotle describes it as δι’ ελεου και φοβου περαινουσα την των τοιουτων παθηματων καθαρσιν, “through pity and fear effecting the purgation of these emotions,” the French and English critics of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, ignoring the words των τοιουτων, have totally misinterpreted the passage, and given it a meaning which was not only not intended by Aristotle, but which has falsified his whole theory of the scope and functions of tragedy. An unsound text, the insertion of αλλα before the clause, sent Lessing on a wrong track. From the misinterpretation of another passage in the treatise (V. 4) has been deduced the famous doctrine of the Unities. The mistranslation of σπουδαιος in the definition of Tragedy, and of the same word in the comparison between Poetry and History, has led to misconceptions on other points. The scholars who did most in England to place the study of this treatise on a sound footing were Twining and Tyrwhitt. In the present century it has received exhaustive illustration from Saint-Hilaire, Stahr, Susemihl, Vahlen, Teichmüller, Ueberweg, Reinkens, Jacob Bernays, and others; while such works as E. Müller’s _Geschichte der Theorie der Kunst bei den Alten_ have thrown general light on the question of Greek æsthetics. That Professor Butcher has not been able to advance anything new in these essays is very creditable to him, for the simple reason that, as all that is worth saying has been said, his sole resource, had he attempted to be original, would have been paradox and sophistry. With regard to the question of the _Katharsis_, it will probably be, for all time, a case of “quot homines tot sententiæ”; and we have certainly no intention of accompanying Professor Butcher into this labyrinth. We entirely agree with him and Bernays that the passage in the _Politics_ (V. viii. 7) settles conclusively at least one part of the meaning, but we differ from Bernays, in contending that the “lustratio” is included, and from Professor Butcher, in contending that the “lustratio” is not effected merely by the relief. Professor Butcher seems here indeed to be a little confused, or at all events confusing. He first explains “katharsis” as “a purging away of the emotions of pity and fear,” and then explains it as “a purifying of them”; but it is neither easy to understand how “purging away” is “purifying,” nor why we should “purify” what we “purge away.” Surely it is better--but we speak with all submission--to take the word in two different meanings, the one signifying the immediate effect of tragedy in its direct appeal to the passions referred to, the other not to its immediate, but to its ulterior and total effect in educating the passions thus excited.